A year at the museums: Memorable moments from 2013

December 19, 2013|Steve Johnson | Tribune reporter

Museums are meant to be almost timeless, places that offer a long-view look at the world around us and a focus on what is important rather than merely fashionable. So to excerpt one year from the lives of Chicago's museums and talk only about what happened in that year could be termed a bit unfair. Then again, daily newspapers, by definition, deal in the quotidian. For us, a year-in-review piece is the long view.

From somewhere in between those two viewpoints emerges this look at what was most memorable from 2013 in the world of Chicago's family museums, plus its zoos, gardens and aquarium.

"Opening the Vaults: Wonders of the 1893 World's Fair": Still up at the Field Museum is this gem of an exhibition. Hand built from the museum's storehouses, it merges the Field's own history (it grew out of the fair) with the massive event's influence on the city's and the nation's cultural history. But some of the culture on display was of the imperialist variety, and this exhibition pulls no punches in pointing out where the World's Fair assumed Western superiority at the expense of other peoples. It is, to borrow an adjective derived from a fair invention, a cracker-jack show, fascinating throughout.

"Illumination: Tree Lights at Morton Arboretum": Also still running is this nighttime wonder, my other favorite show of the year. It artfully lights the arboretum's arbor for visitors to enjoy as they walk a one-plus-mile path. Bare trees become architectural artifacts, and evergreens turn into movie screens. It's not the gazillion-bulb holiday light display people are familiar with from the city's zoos. Instead, it's a more poetic experience, with stops for hot chocolate en route.

"Animal Inside Out": The first of the Body Worlds shows to focus on animals, this show, mounted at the Museum of Science and Industry in the spring and summer, rejuvenated Gunther von Hagens' macabre Plastination franchise. The show presented itself as a study in comparative anatomy, as a plastic-preserved horse head was sliced in three and a raging bull looked like muscle on the hoof — and so on through the animal kingdom. But, really, this menagerie of deftly posed, highly manipulated specimens was about showmanship, and what a show it was.

New ice: Talk about good timing. The Lincoln Park Zoo decided to add ice skating to its wintertime activities, and it did so in a year that's actually been cold enough to freeze water. I haven't been to the facility — I love the Blackhawks, have a son who plays hockey and grew up in New Hampshire, but still can't skate — but what's not to like about a new attraction for Lincoln Park? The rink in the Farm-in-the-Zoo will be up through March 2 (tickets $5 with $5 skate rentals).

Touchy feely: In two new exhibits, the Shedd Aquarium began inviting visitors to stick their hands in the tanks. Its "Stingray Touch," up in an outside tent during warmer weather brought people to the edge of a shallow pool loaded with rays, which had been de-barbed, of course. Inside, in a permanent exhibition that nicely updates the aquarium's Great Lakes display, visitors can pet a big, old sturgeon. In each case, the stroke is something less than warm and fuzzy. But kudos to the Shedd for finding ways for visitors to do more than just watch. Let's not go overboard, though, and add an electric-eel or piranha touch experience.

Ah, nature!: Before 2013, I hadn't been to the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, or Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, in at least a couple of years. But reporting trips to each found me lingering, reminded of just how rejuvenating it is to be out among the trees and plants, walking a wooded path or admiring a carefully manicured garden. If your life is starting to feel a little too dense and urban, or even too dense and suburban, take advantage of these top-caliber outdoor museums in our own backyard and make some time for Mother Nature.

Simian flux: The Brookfield Zoo closed its aged Baboon Island, a once cutting-edge exhibit — big rocks, or rocklike objects, surrounded by a moat — that felt outdated. What will take its place has yet to be announced, but Brookfield could do worse than following Lincoln Park Zoo's lead. The city zoo, this summer, started building a big new Japanese snow monkey exhibit that'll put the popular creatures — macaques, if you must know — in a state-of-the-art habitat, add a wintertime draw to the zoo and, for some of us, serve as a reminder of watching the Nagano Winter Olympics on TV. (NBC seemed to show the snow monkeys almost as much as figure skaters.)